


Taking the Shot

by doublejoint



Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: (Ish) - Freeform, Alternate Universe - Hockey, Established Relationship, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-09
Updated: 2019-11-09
Packaged: 2021-01-26 11:57:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,315
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21373771
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doublejoint/pseuds/doublejoint
Summary: “Are we dating?”
Relationships: Himuro Tatsuya/Nijimura Shuuzou
Comments: 4
Kudos: 10
Collections: On One Knee





	Taking the Shot

**Author's Note:**

> takes place a while after ['goal line'](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/devils_shuu/works/10906419) but before ['par four'](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/devils_shuu/works/10934397)
> 
> this started out as something else but i ended up here lol

The coffee is burnt at the bottom of the pot, left there hot long enough that it’s almost hardened on the glass. Tatsuya pours what little there is into his mug, topping off what’s already there to warm it up. It’ll do for now, though it’s not as strong as he’d like. It’s not the way Shuu makes it, a couple of extra scoops for insurance because he’s always spacing out and losing count when he loads the coffee maker.

He’s known Shuu a handful of months, not quite a full year yet, but he’s already used to this. He’s used to scrolling through his social media notifications, in search of a like from a particular account. He’s used to waking up on the East Coast to a text from Shuu on the West; he’s used to being the one who sends the messages, up late and disoriented from the time change but still checking in to look for Shuu in the Devils highlights or send a picture of himself, exhausted and fresh from his real hotel shower (he organizes the selfies in his mind by headboard--this one from the Ritz in LA, that one from the Portland Four Seasons). They’ve made the room for each other in their lives, purposefully and accidentally.

But it had taken a lot of liquor and a need for distraction from the blur of streetlights and signs outside his window last night for Tatsuya to blurt out that he’d been so uncertain of Shuu’s feelings before Shuu had asked him on a date, that despite knowing that Shuu was into him he didn’t really know what Shuu wanted beyond that. He still doesn’t. He could ask, he supposes, but that will be countered with a question about what he wants, and Tatsuya doesn’t know.

He keeps things casual. Hookups, the occasional date, but no serious relationships with lots of ground rules, no continuity, no roots to set down. He could be traded any day. Shuu could too--it’s less likely, but possible, and they both know it, and neither of them have ever said the words “long distance”. Neither of them has ever said the word “boyfriend” or “relationship” either, something that hasn’t been a problem before, but feels like it is now.

But if Tatsuya wants it (and he shouldn’t want it; he’s never let himself want it or think about wanting it) then he’s going to have to lay his cards on the table, play the hand he’s been keeping. He’s going to show more of himself, and it’s not as easy as daring himself not to be chickenshit. It’s a risk, that Shuu won’t want it, that it will hurt and he’ll make a fucking fool out of himself. If he doesn’t want to lose it, he’s got to fight for it, the way hockey players fight for the puck in the corner along the boards (the kind of hockey player Tatsuya would probably be, to some degree, and the kind of hockey player Shuu is). But wins aren’t guaranteed, even when he minimizes the risk and raises his own chances (that stupid viral interview with Midorima from several playoffs ago comes to mind when he thinks about it).

Shuu wants him. Shuu had suggested that they go on that first date. Shuu stays over, and he doesn’t leave in the morning. Shuu is forthcoming and honest; he has no problem talking about growing up, about what a wild child he was before hockey (about how he regrets what he’d put his parents through). He’ll talk about his dad; he’ll talk about his mom and his younger siblings; he’ll talk about how weird playing hockey in a league made up mostly of white Canadian guys who listen to country music is. He’ll talk about the one year he’d spent in college, all hockey and parties and dozing through classes with future finance bros. He’s open, but Tatsuya can’t read what he wants, and maybe that’s not fair.

Of course it matters; of course this--relationship, it is what it is even if they haven’t said it to each other--hinges on whether Shuu wants it or not. But if Tatsuya just hides his feelings and lets this go on, and eventually lets it stop, then what does he gain? His pride? Is it worth it?

He takes another gulp of coffee. The sky is blue-black outside, what parts of it he can see through the trees and buildings across the street, darker than the coffee. 

Shuu could hurt him. He could turn away. He could say yes, of course they’re dating, and then he could push for more, a house and a car and a bank account and a ring and pets and children and a white picket fence. It’s not like him, but he could, in theory. He could ask for more than Tatsuya can give; he could want more than Tatsuya does, decide on a future and slot Tatsuya in there, and Tatsuya could let him down and hurt both of them.

Tatsuya bites down on a hangnail on his thumb. Shuu seems so sure of what he wants, and goes for it with a confidence Tatsuya has to artfully practice and that still feels fake. Shuu either genuinely believes in his ability to go and get it or is unconcerned with the consequences and knows he can handle them. He’s not quite reckless, but skirting the edge, in a way that’s different from Tatsuya losing his temper and jawing at a ref or elbowing an opponent, in a way that makes it easy to see him just hotwiring a motorcycle in Tokyo as a kid and fucking going for it, driving into the night. He knows what he’s doing and he knows it’s stupid sometimes, but he’s going to do it anyway, and sometimes it’s admirable but sometimes it’s just aggravating, the shit he gets himself into, how quick he is to step into a fight and get clocked in the jaw and take it for the team. 

That’s not who Tatsuya is, though. Is it insufferable for someone like Shuu, so open and blunt, to be with someone like him, despite how well they hit it off? He’s asking himself, still, and not asking Shuu, and the longer he thinks about it and kicks the can down the road, the longer nothing happens, and the more frayed the thread gets.

* * *

He takes another week to ask, casually drop it in the middle of a conversation, sitting on Shuu’s worn-in leather couch in between rounds of Street Fighter, Shuu’s arm draped around his shoulders. It’s heavy, unknowingly pressing the weight of these thoughts down on Tatsuya.

“Are we dating?”

Shuu swallows. His arm stiffens.

“Unless...unless you don’t want to be.”

“I want to be,” Tatsuya says, and he feels like looking away but this is too important to break eye contact.

“Okay,” says Shuu. “Good.”

He smiles, his hand squeezing Tatsuya’s upper arm. 

The other shoe does not drop; Shuu does not immediately start planning their future. He does not move on to something else, though there is probably more to this conversation that they should have, later tonight or another time.

* * *

“Should I have brought it up sooner?” Shuu says.

Tatsuya shakes his head. “I think I needed to come to this on my own. Though--maybe if you pushed me?”

He cracks a smile, and Shuu returns it weakly, wrapping his hand around Tatsuya’s. He’d meant it seriously, of course, and Tatsuya had intended his response lightly--but one hundred percent honest.

“I mean it, Shuu. It’s okay to push. I’ll try not to—”

(Run away, get defensive, avoid it. But it’s probably just as hard for Shuu to bring it up, even excluding the way Tatsuya tends to react.)

Shuu’s smile softens. “Okay. I’ll keep that in mind.”


End file.
